{"id":10785,"date":"2017-07-07T22:34:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-08T02:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=10785"},"modified":"2024-01-15T22:38:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T03:38:46","slug":"sp-to-pa-snap-out-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=10785","title":{"rendered":"S&P to PA: Snap Out of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember when, in the movie Moonstruck<\/em>, the character played by Nicholas Cage tells the character played by Cher that he loves her. And she slaps him in the face and says, \u201cSnap out of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well that\u2019s what the financial firm Standard and Poor\u2019s just told the state of Pennsylvania<\/a>yesterday. They, once again, threatened to downgrade our bonds \u2013 forcing up the interest rates we pay \u2013 if we don\u2019t get our fiscal house in order. They are telling our General Assembly to:<\/p>\n

Snap out of our reliance on one-year revenues, like licenses for gaming or liquor sales to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget.<\/p>\n

Snap out of our willingness to move money from one fund to another to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget.<\/p>\n

Snap out of our penchant for over-estimating revenues to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget.<\/p>\n

Snap out of our tendency to shift spending from one year to another to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget.<\/p>\n

And most of all, snap out of thinking that it\u2019s a good idea to sell bonds backed by tobacco settlement revenues to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget.<\/p>\n

Last week<\/a> I pointed out that this last idea is bad policy because it robs from the future, it is dishonest budgeting because it enables us to spend more than we tax, and it is unconstitutional because it violates the clear requirement that our budget be balanced not \u201cbalanced.\u201d Standard and Poor\u2019s adds another argument against the idea \u2013 that Pennsylvania risks its credit rating by borrowing heavily to finance our deficits.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t be the first state to make that mistake. A bipartisan majority overrode a Republican Governor\u2019s veto to substantially raise taxes in Illinois, in no small part because the state had discovered that the weight of persistent deficits and borrowing was sinking its credit rating.<\/p>\n

We will see, very soon, whether S&P\u2019s slap in the face forces our General Assembly to snap out of it and embrace the Governor\u2019s plan, or some other plan, to raise recurring revenues this year. (We have some ideas about how to do that without raising taxes on working people or the middle class<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The moment is coming, however, when our legislators will not have a choice, when we will have to raise taxes not to solve our persistent public investment deficit, but to make up for years of fiscal irresponsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember when, in the movie Moonstruck, the character played by Nicholas Cage tells the character played by Cher that he loves her. And she slaps him in the face and says, \u201cSnap out of it?\u201d Well that\u2019s what the financial firm Standard and Poor\u2019s just told the state of Pennsylvaniayesterday. They, once again, threatened to downgrade our bonds \u2013 forcing up the interest rates we pay \u2013 if we don\u2019t get our fiscal house in order. They are telling our General Assembly to: Snap out of our reliance on one-year revenues, like licenses for gaming or liquor sales to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget. Snap out of our willingness to move money from one fund to another to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget. Snap out of our penchant for over-estimating revenues to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget. Snap out of our tendency to shift spending from one year to another to \u201cbalance\u201d our budget. And most\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":10786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[97,197,205,107],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/harrisburg-skyline-658d7bdf5909d394.jpg?fit=500%2C327&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-2NX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10788,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785\/revisions\/10788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}